SEATTLE, WA -- In the wake of revelations of government
surveillance of nonviolent protests, the American Civil Liberties Union
of Washington today filed requests under the Freedom of Information Act
(FOIA) on behalf of itself and 11 peace organizations across the state.
The groups are seeking records of any surveillance of their activities by
the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Department of Defense or the Seattle
Joint Terrorism Task Force.

“The government should not spy on groups engaging
in peaceful political protest,” said ACLU of Washington Executive
Director Kathleen Taylor. “The FBI should focus its efforts on actual
threats and not target people because of their political views.”

All the organizations in today’s filing have
been involved in peaceful protest of government policies. Today’s
action follows the recent disclosure of government files showing that the
FBI and other federal agencies monitored nonviolent groups around the country,
including peace groups in Washington during the 2003 Seafair Festival.

In addition to the ACLU of Washington, the groups include:

American Friends Service Committee
Peace and Justice Action League of Spokane
People for Peace, Justice, and Healing
Pierce County Truth in Recruiting
Raging Grannies
Seattle Peace Chorus
Sound Nonviolent Opponents of War
United for Peace in Pierce County
Vancouver for Peace
Yakima Valley Peace Advocates Network
Western Washington Fellowship of Reconciliation
Files created by federal agencies in 2003 and released under a previous
FOIA request filed by the ACLU of Washington show communications between
the FBI and other agencies about Ground Zero, the Seattle Peace Chorus,
Sound Nonviolent Opponents of War, and other groups. The original FOIA request
was filed on behalf of Glen Milner of Ground Zero, a Bangor-based nonviolent
group that opposes the use of nuclear weapons. The files reveal government
agents collected information about Ground Zero’s plans to ride small
boats in Elliott Bay to protest the Navy fleet, scheduled to dock during
the annual summer Seafair Festival. The government also gathered information
about political meetings and e-mails sent to allies about the peace flotilla.
The surveillance created permanent government records that could later be
misinterpreted or misused.

The monitoring shows an inappropriate and wasteful
government interest in groups that the ACLU says have no history of violence.
For example, an e-mail in the previously released files noted that the Raging
Grannies, a group of elderly peace advocates who sing at events, had attended
a potluck held by Snohomish County Peace Action of Edmonds. It noted that
the Snohomish group’s Web site had links “from everything between
Aljazeera.net and the Ground Zero Center for Non-Violent Action.”

“Our national security people should have better
things to do than monitoring the Raging Grannies,” said Aaron Caplan,
a staff attorney with the ACLU of Washington. “Domestic spying feeds
the false notion that political dissent is automatically dangerous and somehow
linked to criminal acts or terrorism. Expressing disagreement with the government
is a central part of American freedom. It is not evidence of crime.”

The ACLU of Washington’s requests for public
records are part of a national effort to uncover the extent of domestic
surveillance of political groups under the “war on terror.”
Documents obtained thus far have shown that the FBI and local police infiltrated
political, environmental, anti-war and faith-based groups across the country.
In Pennsylvania, files revealed that the FBI investigated gatherings of
the Thomas Merton Center for Peace & Justice solely because the organization
opposed the war in Iraq. In Georgia, the FBI and local Homeland Security
officials spied on vegans picketing against a meat store in DeKalb County.
In Santa Cruz, California, college students protesting military recruiters
on campus ended up as “credible threat” in the Pentagon’s
TALON surveillance program database.

More information on the national ACLU initiative is
available online at www.aclu.org/spyfiles

To see copies of the government files about Glen Milner
and Ground Zero, visit www.aclu-wa.org

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